Italy’s eloquent PM defends Western values

Giorgia Meloni

September 26, 2024 12 Reactions

Well, for me, the West is more than a physical place. By the word West we do not simply define countries by specific geographical location, but as a civilization built over the centuries with the genius and sacrifices of many.

The West is a system of values in which the person is central, men and women are equal and free, and therefore the systems are democratic, life is sacred, the state is secular, and based on the rule of law.

I ask and wonder, to myself and to you: are these values which we should be ashamed of? And do these values drive us away from the others, or do they bring us closer to the others?

As the West, I think we have two risks to counter.

The first risk is what one of the greatest contemporary European philosophers, Roger Scruton, called oikophobia, from the Greek words oikos, which means home, and phobia, which means fear … Oikophobia is the aversion to one's home. A mounting contempt, which leads us to want to violently erase the symbols of our civilisation, in the US as in Europe.

The second risk is the paradox that, while on the one hand the West looks down on itself, on the other hand it often claims to be superior to the others.

The result?

The result is that the West is in danger of becoming a less credible interlocutor. The so-called Global South is demanding more influence. Developing nations that are by now largely established are autonomously collaborating among themselves. Autocracies are gaining ground on democracies, and we risk looking more and more like a closed and self-referential fortress.

In Italy, to reverse this course, we decided to launch for example the Mattei Plan for Africa, a model of cooperation based on an equal footing to build a new, long-term partnership with African countries.

For, yes, crises are multiplying in the world, but every crisis hides also an opportunity, for it requires one to question oneself, and to act.

Above all, we need to recover awareness of who we are. As Western peoples, we have a duty to keep this promise and seek the answer to the problems of the future by having faith in our values: a synthesis born out of the meeting of Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christian humanism.

In short, as my English professor, Michael Jackson, used to say, “I'm starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways” (we know the song). We have to start with ourselves, to know who we really are, and to respect that, so that we can understand and respect others as well.

There is a narrative that authoritarian regimes care [about] so much. It is about the idea of the inevitable decline of the West, the idea that democracies are failing to deliver. An army of foreign and malign trolls and bots is engaged in manipulating reality and exploiting our contradictions. But to authoritarian fans, let me say very clearly that we will stand for our values. We will do that.

President Reagan once said, "Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenal of the world, is so formidable as the will and the moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have."

I couldn't agree more. Our freedom and our values, and the pride we feel for them, are the weapons our adversaries fear the most. So we can't give up the strength of our own identity, for that would be the best gift we can make to authoritarian regimes.

So, at the end of the day, Patriotism is the best response to declinism.

Defending our deep roots is the precondition for reaping ripe fruit. Learning from our past mistakes is the precondition for being better in the future.

I will also use the words of Giuseppe Prezzolini, perhaps the greatest conservative intellectual in 20th century Italy: “he who knows how to conserve is not afraid of the future, because he has learned the lessons of the past.”

We know how to face the impossible challenges that this era confronts us with only when we learn from the lessons of the past. We defend Ukraine for we have known the chaos of a world in which the law of the strongest prevails. We fight human traffickers because we remember that, centuries ago, we fought to abolish slavery. We defend nature and humankind, because we know that without the responsible work of humans it is not possible to build a more sustainable future.

As we develop artificial intelligence, we attempt to govern its risks because we fought to be free and we do not intend to trade our freedom in exchange for greater comfort. We know how to read these phenomena because our civilisation has given us the tools.

The time we live in requires us to choose what we want to be and what path we want to take. We can continue to fuel the idea of the decline of the West, we can surrender to the idea that our civilisation has nothing more to say, no more routes to chart.

Or we can remember who we are, learn also from our mistakes, add our own piece of the story to this extraordinary walk, and govern what happens around us, to leave our children a better world. Which is exactly my choice.

Should we be ashamed of the Western values praised by Meloni? Tell us in the comments below. 

Giorgia Meloni is Prime Minister of Italy 

This text has been slightly edited from the version provide by Prime Minister Meloni's office. 

Image credit: Atlantic Council